There is a great editorial in the Palm Beach Post criticizing Jeb Bush, titled If State Kills, State Must Pay Lawyers. It was sent to us by a Florida public defender.

Last week, Rudolph Holton walked out of Union Correctional Institution, becoming the 23rd person -- and the fourth in 2 1/2 years -- to be released from the state's Death Row since Florida resumed capital punishment in 1979. He is free because lawyers for the Office of the Capital Collateral Representative (OCCR) stayed with the case long enough to find evidence that could have cleared Holton years ago. In his proposed budget, Gov. Bush zeroes out the OCCR.

On March 18, 2003, America will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, in which a poor Florida prison inmate caused the single biggest change in the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. The Gideon decision guaranteed assistance of counsel to all persons facing imprisonment.

The rationing of legal services to the poor when life and liberty is at stake is neither equal nor just. We say, Shame on Jeb Bush.

Florida's Office of the Capital Collateral Representative was formed in 1995 after a request from the Florida Attorney General and funding was provided for by the state legislature. Today it employs 50 lawyers in three regional offices to represent Death Row inmates.

But legislators always have tried to undercut the agency. Because of conflicts, OCCR sometimes can't represent an inmate, so the state must hire private counsel. In 1998, the Legislature limited to about 800 the number of hours that private attorneys can spend on a case. Nationwide, the standard for death-penalty appeals is more like 3,000 hours. What happens when a lawyer asks for more money? Last year, the Legislature voted to take any such lawyer off the list.

Gov. Bush says cutting OCCR would save $4 million a year. Almost certainly, he's wrong. Courts can't drop the constitutional requirement for adequate counsel. The state will have to find lawyers somewhere, and pay them.

Gov. Bush, typically making the issue all about him, said after Holton's release, "If the question is, are innocent people being executed under my tenure as governor? I can honestly tell you that's not the case." In fact, he can't say that honestly, not with Florida's system having all the credibility of pro wrestling. After each release, the governor says it proves "that the system works." Let him spend 16 years on Death Row for a crime he didn't commit and say "the system works."

It doesn't matter that some of the men released from Death Row were guilty of other crimes, some of them serious. Retaining all respect for murder victims' families, the state cannot tolerate a system with inadequate safeguards against wrongful execution. If Gov. Bush and Mr. Crist want to save money and prevent wrongful executions, they can have it both ways: Abolish the death penalty. (emphasis supplied)